‘No confidence’: Shadow child safety minister says families worried about sending kids to school
The Shadow Minister for child safety says families are worried about sending their children to public schools, in wake of a damning Education Department report. LATEST >>
Tasmania
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TASMANIAN families are worried about sending their children to school in the wake of a damning report about child sexual abuse, the Shadow Minister for Child Safety says.
On Sunday, Sarah Lovell criticised the state government’s response in parliament following the release of recommendations and findings in an independent Education Department inquiry.
She described the release as “highly sanitised”, with the findings and recommendations only made public as a Right to Information request for the full report loomed.
Ms Lovell expressed concern about the 21 public school staff identified in the report as requiring further review or investigation.
“We’re hearing these concerning allegations, and (there’s) no confidence about whether they’re being adequately investigated,” she said.
“We’re hearing from families all over Tasmania that they’re worried about their children.”
‘Stompy’ MP says sorry for noisy exit during abuse press conference
A government backbencher has apologised after being accused of stomping his feet to drown out a Greens press conference on child abuse.
Liberal MPs John Tucker and Felix Ellis passed by through the background of a press conference being held by Greens leader Cassy O’Connor on Wednesday afternoon.
Their heavy footfalls on the wooden treads were notably louder than others using the same route between the parliament and government offices.
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Ms O’Connor said if their audible stomping was intended as a joke, she didn’t find it funny.
“The people of Tasmania pay taxes, pay our wages, and when they elect us they expect us to behave in this place with integrity and propriety but to behave like adults,” she said.
“I believe that is what they expect of us. They have been very poorly served by the conduct of Mr Tucker and Mr Ellis today. It was witnessed. It was heard.
“I understand that both Mr Tucker and Mr Ellis are relatively new members of this House and perhaps they have not understood the importance of treating very serious matters that come before this place with the gravity that they deserve.
“Mr Tucker and Mr Ellis were not put in here to make light of the most serious matters.
“Perhaps those members think everything in here is a joke. It is not.”
Mr Tucker said he was running late for a briefing and apologised if he had caused any offence.
“We were heading up the stairs. I did not notice the cameras and Ms O’Connor until I was half way up the stairs,” he told parliament.
“I did not think that we were overly loud. Accusing us of laughing at what was going on at that media speech, to be quite honest with you, I did not even know what was being said at that media speech. I want to clear up the record up in regard to that.
“If I have caused offence with what I did, I apologise. It was not meant to be offensive.”
Government MPs were accused of being drunk during debate over poker machine laws last week.
The claims were rejected by Speaker Mark Shelton.
‘Doomed to fail’: No government funding for abuse scandal
THERE was no new funding in the state budget for measures to address the abuse scandal in government schools, the Australian Education Union says.
The report of an inquiry into the Education Department’s response to abuse allegations revealed a culture of victim blaming, slow and inadequate responses and dozens of staff with “record of concern”.
The report, a redacted version of which was tabled in parliament on Tuesday, was given to the government on June 21.
The state budget was handed down on August 26.
Australian Education Union state president David Genford said there were no additional resources for implementing the report’s findings in the Budget.
“The Report found a consistent shortfall of school support staff is making it impossible for principals and schools to focus on prevention and proactive programs for student safety and wellbeing,” he said.
“The independent report recommends a focus on preventing, not just responding to abuse – the Minister needs to back good intentions with real resources.
“The Government has had this report since June, they accepted the recommendations, so why were there no additional resources in the budget to make it happen?”
The report found that adequate responses to abuse allegations was hampered by a lack of resources.
“One consistent refrain across all the schools we visited was that the demand for school support staff greatly outweighed the allocated resources for these positions by DoE,” it noted.
“Most of the schools purchased additional time for school support staff from their general school budgets, but still do not have anywhere near the availability of professional support staff to keep up with student demand.
“At least three of the principals we met with told us they would like their school support staff to move in to the development and delivery of proactive preventive programs – or even to undertake some therapy programs with the most needy groups of students — but the work of those professionals is almost entirely reactive, preoccupied with assessments and responding to the most pressing and serious problems.”
Mr Genford said the Australian Education Union had long advocated in budget submissions and member campaigns for additional professional support staff such as social workers and school psychologists but had been ignored.
“If additional resources are not provided, these attempts from the government to improve child safety are doomed to fail,” he said.
‘Nothing new’: Whistleblower says state school students still at risk
A WHISTLEBLOWING lawyer who raised the alarm on the Education Department’s apparent culture of child sexual abuse cover-ups says a new report reveals “nothing new”.
Sebastian Buscemi, who last year came forward about prolific paedophiles Darrel George Harington and Anthony Alan LeClerc being simply moved from school-to-school as complaints mounted against them, also says Tasmanian state school students are still at risk.
Both Harington and LeClerc, who were seemingly shielded by the department for years in an almost exact replica of the Catholic Church’s historical approach to protecting children, have been cited as case studies in a full report of an independent inquiry into the Education Department.
But Mr Buscemi said the report didn’t even scratch the surface of the full extent of the department’s troubles.
He also said a number of alleged abusers – including currently-employed staff – were known to the department, but only investigated when the inquiry was announced.
“If the department had acted decades ago, the current culture and risks for children wouldn’t still be there,” Mr Buscemi said.
“Why did they have to wait until the inquiry to take any action?”
He also said Tasmanian state school students were still very much at risk from predators – more so than in any other state of Australia.
“(It’s a) really concerning reality that Tasmanian kids face a risk that kids in no other part of Australia face,” Mr Buscemi said.
“There are better processes in place interstate to identify risk.
“The report shows what we know to be some of the biggest risk factors in institutional child abuse – an unwillingness to deal with the problem, an unwillingness to acknowledge the problem, a culture of secrecy and cover-up, a culture that disbelieves children and minimises what’s occurred to them.”
He said the Tasmanian public school system had a culture that “lacks any empathy towards victims and leaves them feeling as though they’re the wrongdoer in the end”, and continued to “sweep sexual abuse under the carpet and divert attention”.
Mr Buscemi also said there was “no excuse or justification” for the fact the report was published in June this year, but only released this week – some five months later.
“It’s typical of the Tasmanian government to try to control the narrative and minimise the seriousness of what’s being said.”
Meanwhile, Greens leader Cassy O’Connor said a year was too long to implement the report’s 21 recommendations, especially since it revealed 41 current employees had “some record of concern”.
She said new student safeguards should instead be in place by the start of the 2022 new school year.
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